For individuals diagnosed with ADHD, treatment is important. It can help with functioning in day to day life. It can help to increase concentration and reduce restlessness. This can be important for both children and adults. However, not every medication works the same for every person. This is why different ADHD medications exist.

Vivance, otherwise known as Vyvance, is one of the many ADHD medications available. It is an amphetamine that stimulates chemicals in the brain to function properly. It is unclear, however, the exact way this works. It can be used to treat ADHD sufferers ages 6 and up.

It is important to realize that Vivance should be used in conjunction with other types of treatment. These treatments can include counseling or other therapies. Pairing the medication with other types of therapy can help possibly decrease the need for the medication and make the use of the medication more effective. Talking to your doctor about your symptoms and struggles with ADHD can help the two of you come up with a complete and comprehensive plan.

Taking Vivance

Vivance is taken only once a day, unlike other stimulants. This can make taking Vivance easier for certain patients that lead busy lifestyles and don’t have the time to think about taking a pill several times a day. However, there are some cases in which Vivance is not the best medication option.

Because Vivance is a stimulant, patients who have heart conditions, high blood pressure, or a family history of heart conditions, you should talk to your doctor. Additionally, children and adults that have either a personal or family history of mental disorders like bipolar, suicide, or depression should also talk to their doctor about whether using Vivance is the best option.

Important Safety Information

You should also know that Vivance is a controlled substance. Because it contains amphetamines, it is highly addictive. This can create possible drug abuse in both patients that it is prescribed to as well as anyone else who takes it that it is not prescribed to. Vivance should never be given to anyone that it is not prescribed to and you should always follow the instructions carefully to reduce the chances of addition and abuse. Abuse of Vivance can also lead to sudden death and serious heart problems. Selling or distributing Vivance to anyone is illegal and punishable by law.

How Vivance Can Help Adults

For adults, ADHD can be just as frustrating as it is for children. Sometimes, it can even be embarrassing. As adults, we assume that ADHD is a child’s disorder. However, since there is no cure for ADHD, the condition continues on into adulthood. Sadly, however, you cannot always make this clear to employers. This is where Vivance can help. With Vivance, many adults have experienced improved attention span, less hyperactivity, and fewer impulsive tendencies. This allows you to focus on your life, not on your condition.

How Vivance Can Help Children

Childhood is an important time in our lives. It is when we learn how to behave in socially acceptable ways. It is when we learn the important academic foundation for our future. It is when we learn how to develop healthy and meaningful relationships. For children with ADHD, this can be extremely difficult.

Vyvance can help children focus when it is important. It can help them pay attention in class and learn how to build healthy relationships with their peers. This can help improve their self-esteem and help them raise their grades, giving them a better chance in their future.

Vivance Side-Effects

Like all medications, there are some side-effects that may be involved with Vivance. The most common side-effects include nausea, upper abdominal pain, dry mouth, irritability, vomiting, weight loss, decreased appetite, dizziness, and trouble sleeping. These side effects are generally mild and are rarely dangerous.

There are, however, some serious side-effects that can take place. Seizures, mostly in patients who have had a history of seizures may occur. Blurred vision and changes in eyesight can happen while using Vivance.

Motion or verbal tics may also occur. For patients who already have tics or have been diagnosed with Tourette’s, tics may worsen or increase. Children may experience a slowing of growth. Your doctor should check your child’s height and weight regularly to monitor this potential problem. You should talk to your doctor if you think any of these problems are dangerous.

The real question is whether or not Vivance is right for you or your child. This is something that you should discuss with your doctor. Discuss any other type of treatment that may be needed in conjunction with your medication. Talk to your doctor about any potential risks you may have or that may be in your family history. Watch for signs of danger in either you or your child.

Learn the Truth About ADHD and Diet

ADHD, otherwise known as Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder, can create several problems for those diagnosed. Difficulty focusing on specific tasks, particularly those that require concentration, disorganization, difficulty in paying attention to conversations and tasks at hand, and restlessness are just a few of the symptoms that individuals with ADHD experience.

The disorder can affect children, adolescents, and adults. There is no cure, so if a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the likelihood is that the disorder will carry on into adulthood. This can make focusing on the job and in relationships difficult during adulthood. Generally, ADHD is treated with medication and other types of therapy. However, many individuals wonder if the right diet could alleviate the symptoms often experienced with ADHD.

While the thought is not too far off, the research on ADHD diets is very limited and rather contradictory. Essentially, while an ADHD diet will not harm anyone who is on it, it may or may not help with symptoms of ADHD. However, experts believe that diet does play a role in alleviating symptoms associated with ADHD. The decision to go on an ADHD diet is something that only the individual can make with the help of their physician. Results are not guaranteed and any results experienced may also fluctuate from one person to the next.

What Does an ADHD Diet Mean?

Essentially, an ADHD diet should help the brain function better and help increase the functionality of certain chemicals in the brain that create the symptoms experienced with ADHD. These symptoms should lessen or be less severe when the diet is adhered to.

There are three basic types of ADHD diets. Individuals can implement parts of each one, use them all, or just stick with one type of diet to see which works best. This can vary, depending on the individual.

First, overall nutrition is important, not just for those that have ADHD but for everyone. Overall nutrition is the food that you eat every day. It is the foods that can make ADHD better or worse. Second, there are supplementation diets for ADHD. These diets assume that, by adding certain nutrients to the body, the brain will function differently. This assumes that the symptoms are created by nutrients that are lacking within the body. Lastly, there are elimination diets for ADHD. These diets would involve the removal of certain foods that may worsen the symptoms experienced with ADHD.

Using an Overall Nutrition Diet for ADHD

According to experts, having a healthy overall diet may help increase brain function. This diet includes eating a high protein diet, reducing or limiting simple carbohydrates like sugar and sweets, eating more complex carbohydrates, particularly fruits and vegetables, and increasing omega-3 fatty acids.

A high protein diet requires you to still watch for fat. This is important to future health and can help prevent heart disease. A high protein diet should be full of beans, nuts, sprouts, tofu, soy products, and can include a limited amount of cheese, eggs, and meat. It is said that a high protein diet may help to increase the efficacy of ADHD medication and proteins should be consumed early in the day and in the early afternoon for a snack.

Simple carbohydrates can include more than just sugar. Other products to avoid include white flour, potatoes, honey, and white rice. These foods may cause an increased hyperactivity in individuals with ADHD.

Complex carbohydrates are often missing from the average American diet and are extremely important. While whole grain products are considered complex carbohydrates, the majority of carbs should come from vegetables and a moderate amount of fruit. If consumed right before bed, they could help reduce restlessness at night and promote healthy sleep.

Omega-3 fatty acids are extremely good for the brain. This can be taken as either a supplement or achieved through natural food sources like tuna, salmon, olive oil, canola oil, or Brazilian nuts.

ADHD Nutritional Supplements

According to some researchers, because the American diet is rarely what it should be, individuals should take a complete multivitamin every day. However, this ADHD diet should be used with caution and with the close advisement of your doctor. Since symptoms from one person to the next can vary greatly, so can results. Additionally, for adults, certain health conditions can make taking nutritional supplements dangerous.

Elimination Diets for ADHD

Elimination diets require you to be sensitive to your body. You have to learn how to recognize the severity of your symptoms and determine if a particular food could be contributing to your symptoms. To use an elimination diet, you have to first determine a food that you believe might be causing or adding to your symptoms. This assumption can be made because of how you feel after you eat a particular food. Once you have identified the food, you need to eliminate the substance from your diet completely. You then need to observe how you feel over the next few weeks. If you notice that your symptoms have lessened in severity, you have probably identified a food that you need to avoid.

Important ADHD Statistics You Should Know

For parents, suspicion or diagnosis of ADHD can be devastating and even scary. What does it mean for their child? What is treatment entail? Why their child? Is their child normal? These questions are normal and so are the fears that are often associated with the possibility of ADHD.

Many of these fears can be eased by learning about the ADHD statistics. Some of the statistics will help you better understand your child’s condition. They can help you understand just how common ADHD is in children. It can also make you aware of other concerns that you should know about ahead of time. This can help you create a plan of action to avoid certain issues that often arise in individuals with ADHD.

How Common is ADHD?

ADHD is currently one of the most diagnosed neurological disorders in children today. It is estimated by the American Psychiatric Association that somewhere between 3% and 7% of school-aged children have ADHD. However, according to parent surveys, the statistics are higher.

Community surveys from parents indicate that, as of 2007, approximately 9.5% of all school age children have been diagnosed with ADHD. This equates to 5.4 million children. Obviously, the number of diagnosed children has likely increased since this survey.

The numbers may not seem that alarming to some parents. However, when you put these numbers into perspective, it essentially equates to at least one child in every classroom in America that has ADHD. Now, the numbers seem much more alarming. However, these numbers do not mean that the child or the country is without hope.

It would also seem that boys are more prone to ADHD than girls. According to parent surveys, boys were much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls. Boys, on their own, have a 13.2% chance of being diagnosed with ADHD than girls who have only a 5.6% chance of being diagnosed. However, the lower ADHD numbers for girls may not be indicative to the number of girls that actually have ADHD. This is only the statistic for girls that are diagnosed. Studies have shown that girls are more prone to inattentiveness than hyperactivity, making diagnosis less likely in girls.

State diagnosis is varied dramatically. North Carolina topped at the highest number of children diagnosed with 15.6% of all children being diagnosed with ADHD. On the opposite end, Nevada had the lowest diagnosis rate with only 5.6% of all children in the state being diagnosed.

Medication and Treatment

While medication is the most common method for treating ADHD, there are some parents that choose to attempt natural, homeopathic, or diet changes to treat the symptoms displayed in their ADHD child. According to statistics, this accounted for 44.7% of all diagnosed cases, just under half. However, 66.3% of children diagnosed with ADHD are receiving treatment with medication. It was also found that boys were 2.8% more likely than boys to receive medication to treat their ADHD.

Medication treatment was also found to be highly variable according to state location. Arkansas reported the highest use of medication, with 6.5% of children diagnosed taking medication. California reported the lowest numbers with only 2.1% of all diagnosed children being treated with medication.

Do Children With ADHD Have a Learning Disability as Well?

One of the biggest concerns that parents express with ADHD diagnosis is the presence of a learning disability. This is a very valid concern since ADHD affects many of the aspects of learning like attention span, ability to listen to instructions, and following instructions.

The number of children who struggle with both ADHD and a learning disability can be a little alarming. Approximately 4% of all children who have ADHD also have a learning disability. However, there is substantial evidence that indicates that children with ADHD can learn when taught with multi-sensory methods, particularly those that involve activity.

ADHD and Friendships

Every parent wants their child to make and maintain friendships in their childhood years. This can be important for self-esteem and provide children with a playmate. However, parents are likely to find that a child with ADHD may struggle in building and maintaining peer relationships. According to parent surveys, children with ADHD are 3 times more likely to have problems in peer relationships and almost 10 times more likely to experience problems that interfere with the health of their friendships.

Children with ADHD can learn how to become full-functioning adults. While there may always be some differences in their ability to learn, listen, and maintain relationships, there are treatment options that can help. There are even parenting classes that can help you learn how to offer your child the best possible success for their future. Since children with ADHD learn differently, these classes can be invaluable to you and your child’s future.

Guanfacine and ADHD

Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder affects at least one in thirty students in America. Children diagnosed with this condition often experience symptoms that interfere with their ability to be successful in school and at home. Relationships are often lacking for these children because of their impulsive behavior. And, sadly, this can cause feelings of low self-worth and a sense of separation from those around them.

There is no cure for ADHD and children with ADHD will carry their condition on into adulthood. While adults do learn to cope with their disorder and can often cover it, symptoms are still present, particularly when certain situations are unavoidable, like loud or distracting places.

Treatment during both childhood and adulthood can help decrease ADHD symptoms. This can help increase social, academic, and employment functionality. With other treatment options like counseling, children who have ADHD can grow into successful adults that understand their condtion.

What is Guanfacine?

Guanfacine, also known as Tenex and Intuniv, is a norepinephrine receptor subtype. Its chemical make-up can help to improve attention problems in individuals with ADHD by modulating specific receptors in the brain. However, this is not the primary use of Guanfacine.

Originally, Guanfacine was manufactured and marketed as a cardiovascular drug that helped to lower cholesterol in patients that have hypertension. It has helped patients manage their high cholesterol in both short term and long term studies.

The lack of a stimulant quickly made Guanfacine a popular choice among some parents and individuals for the treatment of ADHD. Because stimulants are very addictive and can be easily abused, many parents and individuals are hesitant to use them for the treatment of ADHD, despite the fact that they are often safe and effective for ADHD sufferers.

Benefits to Using Guanfacine for ADHD

Guanfacine actually strengthens the prefrontal cortical network connections, which helps to regulate behavior and attention span. It can help patients sleep better at night, which is a common side-effect experienced with ADHD stimulant medications. In animal testing, Guanfacine seemed to decrease distractibility, improve response inhibition, improve working memory, and increase attention control. These benefits have also been observed in humans that have used the drug to treat ADHD. The drug has also been shown to work as an effective treatment for other psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD and anxiety.

Guanfacine Side Effects

Just like most drugs, there are some side-effects that can accompany ADHD treatment with Guanfacine. The most common symptoms experienced by those taking Guanfacine were drowsiness, gas pain, loss of appetite, dizziness, headache, depression, diarrhea, fatigue, and nasal congestion. These symptoms are often mild to moderate.

Rare side-effect can include more serious conditions like shortness of breath, chest pains, blurred vision, swelling in the hands or feet, skin rash, or yellowing of the skin or eyes. These conditions should be discussed immediately with your doctor if they occur.

Other side effects that can take place include tingling in the hands or feet, impotence, vision changes, ringing in the ears, mental and mood changes, dry mouth, decreased sexual desire, changes in taste, and leg cramps. Tachycardia or bradycardia can also occur in some patients, particularly those that have certain cardiovascular conditions. If any cardiovascular symptoms are experienced, it is important to talk to your doctor immediately.

When Guanfacine Isn’t Enough

In some cases, Guanfacine is not enough for proper treatment of ADHD. It must be paired with a stimulant to help increase the efficacy. It should also be noted that the medication should be paired with other forms of non-medication treatment. Counseling or similar types of treatment can help a child cope with their disorder and learn how to deal with their condition in the future.

Exercise can also help with ADHD treatment. In the brain of a person with ADHD, dopamine levels, a chemical in the brain, is lower than that of a person without ADHD. Exercise helps to increase this chemical, helping the individual naturally decrease their ADHD symptoms.

Diet may also play a role in ADHD treatment. In some studies, certain foods have shown that that they may help decrease or cause an increase in ADHD symptoms. If you think that diet could play a part in your ADHD treatment, discuss diet options with your physician.

Is Guanfacine the Right Choice?

Only your doctor can really decide which type of medication is right for you or your child. However, you need to be sure that you share your past medical history with your doctor. This can help your doctor choose the best treatment options and avoid any options that may be unsafe. In most cases, Guanfacine is much safer than other ADHD drugs, particularly stimulants. However, this is not always the case and your doctor can only make the right choice based upon the information you provide.

Causes of ADHD

Today, ADHD is one of the most commonly diagnosed neurological disorders in children. Actual diagnosis of the problem has only existed since the 1980s. Essentially, this has left much unknown when it comes to the disorder, especially in the way of causes of ADHD. However, as medicine continues to advance and studies continue to be performed on those with ADHD doctors are starting to understand the disorder a little more.

Since there is no known cure for ADHD, only treatment, people may wonder what the point in knowing the causes is. They may question if knowing the causes can really help with anything. This concern can be a little difficult to address at times. However, the truth is that, by understanding the causes of ADHD, doctors can work towards a cure. Additionally, knowing the causes can help the parents of children diagnosed with ADHD to know when their child might be at higher risk. This can lead to earlier detection and screening in children that might have gone undiagnosed throughout the childhood years. There are even possible causes of ADHD that parents, particularly future mothers, can avoid, decreasing the risk of their child developing ADHD. So, as you can see, there really is reasoning behind knowing the causes of ADHD, despite the fact that there is no cure at this time.

Genetic Tendency

At this time, it is not known exactly what causes ADHD. However, medical research has shown that there are inherited genetic factors that may be responsible for the presence of ADHD in most cases. Research is still focusing on identifying the actual genes that create the presence of ADHD. However, there have been no definitive answers at this time.

Researchers have discovered, however, that children with two or more close family members with ADHD are at a higher risk. If a child has one or more parents with ADHD, the child is at an even higher risk. The genetic tendency also seems to be very strong in male genes. More than one-third of the men diagnosed with ADHD have children who are also eventually diagnosed with the condition.

There are a number of cases in which there is no genetic tendency for ADHD. This has led researchers to search out other possible causes. Once again, there still are no definitive answers. However, researchers do know more now than they did when the condition was first discovered.

Other Possible Causes

While genetics are said to be the biggest contributing factor to ADHD, researchers have also singled out a few other possible causes. Studies have suggested that the use of cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs could increase the risk for ADHD. All of these factors can be completely eliminated during pregnancy, therefore reducing the risk of ADHD. This can be especially important if the mother or father of the child already have a genetic tendency for ADHD.

Low birth weight babies may also be more susceptible to developing ADHD later in life. So may children that have experienced head injuries during childhood. Other studies have also indicated that exposure to lead in children could cause ADHD symptoms.

Lead, for the most part, has been eliminated from most paints and products. However, there are certain professions that may still work with lead. This lead can come home on clothing or skin. Be aware of the materials in your home and materials that you work with so that you can prevent this item in your home.

Items That Do Not Cause ADHD

Some parents worry that certain foods can cause ADHD in their children. However, there is no evidence indicating that this is true. Comprehensive studies have shown, however, that children who are diagnosed with ADHD can see a decline in symptoms through the use of a restrictive diet in about 5% of children. These studies are not conclusive, however. There are other studies that have not shown that there is any significant correlation between ADHD symptoms and food, dyes, or sugars.

How ADHD Affects the Brain

The way that the brain works has told researchers a lot about ADHD and its causes. Special imaging tests have been used to study the brain of those that have been diagnosed with ADHD. According to researchers, there may be a link between ADHD and the structure of the brain. Certain areas in the brain that are responsible for impulse control and attentiveness seem to develop differently in children with ADHD.

Additionally, the chemical in the brain, dopamine, seems to be lower in those diagnosed with ADHD. This chemical is responsible for carrying signals between the nerves and the brain.
This is the chemical that is thought to be stimulated through the use of stimulators, like Ritalin, for the treatment of ADHD. This is also the chemical that is stimulated in the brain during the use of cocaine and nicotine. It is thought that this may explain the greater risk of drug abuse that adult ADHD sufferers have.